Serie Noire 04

Raw, Real

I liked this. Kudos.

A nice read. Thank you.

Not in this lifetime

You do not forgive that kind of pain & betrayal it stays with you, it warms you & keeps you feed.

Believe it or Not

I know that feeling. No, I'm not dead inside but I'm just putting in time myself. One more thing. Fucking cunt.

And now we DON'T know the rest of the story ( apologies to late Paul Harvey )

Apologies are such empty words unless followed post-haste by contrition. This story leaned too hard on enigma for my personal taste. Portraying some encounter between some mercenary twat with a extremely belated sense of conscience and her wronged ex-husband is shooting koi in a barrel for a writer of likegoodwine's ability.

The clear challenge lies in depicting the initial meeting of estranged father and son. Hopefully, that will be the fifth installment of this series. If this were a literary offering by a novice writer , my enthusiasm would be discernibly greater. But based on this author's superlative last story, expectations are raised. Here's hoping for fulfillment of that story.

JPB gets away with his marked Sphinx tendencies towards non-conclusive endings, well because he's JPB. Two's a crowd however in that regard. Please take this Series Noire belles - lettres to it's logical conclusion. That would be best and ample remorse for penning this literary chateau of angst.

A DROWNEDING MAN

clutching for a toothpick and leaving sawdust TK U MLJ LV NV

Great Beginning

Even though it will probably be another one of your weak wimp stories, I'll at least wait for the conclusion before I vote.
Larabie (Laramie?) seems to have a pair, and I hope he will be allowed to hang on to them at least through chapter two.

Nerp

My mother did almost exactly this when I was 13. I learned the truth through a different means and tracked my father down when I was 22. It was a reconnection, and we shared many moments over the years, but until the day he died we were friends and not family. I didn't look like the boy he lost, he didn't look like the man I remembered. Something about it was just...gone. You don't get to just have it back.

When he died, he left me his guitar...the one he played to me on when I was a baby. The rest went to his brothers and sisters. So there's your ending, I guess.

Ugh!

Sure, now that she's dying she's sorry, where was her regret for the last 17 years? I can understand her immediate anger, even the raking over the coals during the divorce, but after a year or so to cool off, where was her sorrow then, when it could have made a difference?

I would have told her, "Why should I make it easier for you? Did you make it easier for me when you cheated on me, lied about me and ruined my life? I MAY see our son, AFTER you're dead, maybe not, but you're going to die not knowing, and I hope it's soon and painful."

What a bitch.....

She's dying and now realizes she's a bitch. The time for the truth was 17 years ago. The relationship with his son is dead. She got what she wanted.

Very well done.

As Ricky Nelson wisely observed, "You can't please everyone so you've got to please yourself." You've done that with this story and for what it's worth, pleased me as well. There is no need for a second chapter, everything necessary for understanding is here, including the ending. Five stars for achieving what you intended to achieve. Four and three quarter stars for execution only because a couple of times you phrased your sentences slightly differently than I would have if I had the ability to think up your storyline. I know, picky, picky, picky, but isn't that why people post in Loving Wives?

I liked it.

This was short, but a full story. Well written and poignant.

Half baked

Well, the wife has been sentenced to death for her crimes. That's good, right? Somewhat unsatisfying. It's better that her son won't talk to her. Maybe she will die alone. That would be fitting. 17 years of lies, cruelty, and loneness. What's appropriate compensation for that? Is death enough? Her suffering (a few months?) will soon be over. His went on for 17 years. His ex MADE it last for 17 years. She held him in the prison of her lies.

And I agree with anon about broken relationships not being able to be restored to new. When we form loving relationships we tend to build them of only good things. Bad stuff is not only missing but almost incompatible. They say that you can rebuild things like love and trust but can you really? After someone hurts you badly you may rebuild the relationship but the scars, the possibility of being hurt, is now part of the relationship. When something difficult happens, those possibilities come back into focus and the pain associated with them returns. What happened might actually be nothing but the possibility of pain hurts anew. The relationship is no longer pristine, without the possibility of hurt.

We got an unlikely Mary Poppins ending that was never earned. The wife is disposed of and then all is supposedly sunshine and roses all in two paragraphs at the end.

Very good!

I like a story that leaves me with food for thought.

Wonderfully Written!

Wow, what a powerful story! You got so much done with so few words. I loved the ending; it was perfect. You are a great writer and I look forward to more of your work. Please ignore the great moralizers that make comments on this site.
Thank you for writing this. 5*

not sure why he would go to his son, more the son should have come to him

it appears tho dying the wife is not in near enough pain. Let me see she cheated, lied, destroyed her marriage, framed her husband criminally, divorced him, destroyed his reputation, for three fucks, and waited 17 years to come clean? Wow I can die now with a clear mind, how stupid. Seems she owes him more than words, leaving all her property to him, publishing her confession in the newspaper as a full page ad. Now that would be trying to come clean instead of sneaking off to him and trying to manipulate him again. At 15 the son was old enough to know whether or not his father was abusive to his mother. Story does not wash.

Little pearl

I got up this morning and found this nice little pearl. Thanks.

Well done

Poignant, well written, loaded with the emotion of four devastated lives. Yet, the hint of bright hope.
So well done, thank you for writing.
5*
Best regards,
-Pultoy

I want to write one more thing about this story:

Succinct.
Regards,
-Pultoy

Grim stuff

Grim and unfortunately very realistic. There are so many lies during a divorce, most of them by the wife that the truth is distorted beyond all recognition. Women seem to think that lying to their loved ones is okay if it gets you what you want. They would rather damage the kids with lies than take a chance that their kids might side with their father. I can tell you this happened to me and several other people I grew up with. In the end, none of us had much use for our mothers. I have also seen there ex- wives of my friends play this same evil game. Women as a group do not understand the meaning of honor, sacrifice and doing the right thing to protect your children. They are emotionally driven and that means they do what they want to do for themselves first and their children second. I know this sounds like male chauvinism and I know not all women are lying selfish cunts, but there are enough of them out there to generalize this as an attribute of their gender.

Wow, great comments

so I have nothing to add. Except I think it was exceptional, and yes like LSD says the real poignancy is the meeting iwth the son.

Very well done.

Well written and to the point. A classic. Thanks for your work.

Excellent Flash Story

The idea that there is no coming back after 17 years in the hole is not agreement with the Count of Monte Christo. After the beautiful description of how empty he felt, I was shocked by his getting into his car and driving off..

Sad but poignant flash story

Another "evil is as evil does" story - albeit shorter than the Stangster's contiribution yesterday. Good writing; sad story where nobody wins.

Fluttering End

Unless you yourself can envision such an ending, wandering with a questioning look s all that's left.
From empty to full makes no sense to me but the wife sees it as very possible.
Gave it a 4. Torn betwixt 3 and 5.

Liked It

the story showed the amount of destruction one partner can do to another. and the amount of personal loss the offended and offender can feel. the part where the "old" Larabie would have let her stay or offered her some hope was poignant.

Guess I'm an ass but the son, and I use that term loosely, made his choice along with Martha years ago. I find it hard to believe he'd expect to be forgiven as quickly as he had learned to hate. Based on reality? Perhaps. Although I have to admit I'd be skeptical about anyone's sincerity at this time. 17 years and son hadn't forgiven father yet. Over half his life hating for a presumed reason. And Peter would want to make a relationship with that kind of troll carrying that much baggage. Pulllllease...

Good

Like this little series.

Enjoyed it

Great little flash tale. Five stars.

A beautiful tale

Great story. The outline was perfect. Just the right amount of detail and tension. I would love to read the expanded story. Thanks for your work!

Boo Fucking Hoo

So she came clean to the son. Is that all? Did she go before a judge, admit her perjury and try to get her husband's good name cleared? Did she write all their friends and anyone else she ever lied to and tell them the truth? After 17 years, it was not enough.

Yes, I would have gone to see my son and tried to rebuild a relationship. But I would have waited until after the bitch had died, alone and knowing that everyone she ever loved hated her for what she had done.

Good story

I really enjoyed it. I can think of a number of alternate endings.

But I find one line in the story incongruous: "There was no doubt in her mind she was partly responsible for her ex-husband's situation." Only PARTLY to blame?? If she really thinks that, she still hasn't come to terms with what she did.

Repeating Myself, But...

I still question why she had to wait SEVENTEEN YEARS and terminal cancer to come clean, and as someone else said, did she come clean to EVERYBODY, not just their son?

And kudos to the son for cutting his mother off NOW, but he couldn't find it in his heart to reach out to his father ONCE in 17 years, and why is it up the father to reach out now?

And while it appears that he gave her her wish, he DEFINITELY should have let her die not knowing.

After 17 years everything is okay?

Your story ending seems to imply that he forgives his ex-wife and son. That maybe he even comforts his ex in her dying days. That he forgives his son and moves into a house near him? (With what money?). And I found it hard to believe he would just desert Emma without ever saying a word, like goodbye, to someone that had obviously treated him well and probably helped him through some dark days. He really wasn't a good guy was he? Also, you referred to the "witnesses at the restaurant". I found it impossible to believe that no one saw him swing at his wife's lover and , by mistake, hit her. Sorry but this was simply a lousy story. Maybe next time.

Oddly enough, no one else has seen the other alternative to what happened at the end...

The story said NOTHING about him going to his son...

It only said he got in the vehicle, drove past (without seeming to care) the only person he'd gotten anything good from in the last however many years, and later, his cabin was sold.

Who's to say he wasn't SO damaged by what his wife in her cowardice and fear did to him that he didn't just disappear so he wouldn't have to worry about her trying to return to beg him more for something she had NO right to ask for or their(?) son searching him out...?

Her actions are similar to what a child might do in blaming someone else for what they did, and then sticking to their story, not only as they see it snowballing AGAINST that other person but BECAUSE it was snowballing.

"Confess right away and it'll go easier on you. Wait until other bad things happen, and it'll go worse." But hard to think, from his point of view, that having their son hate her for the few months she had left to live at all equates to having the son actively hate his father for more than half of the son's life. Or are we to believe that, for her, the thought that their son will hate her even after she's dead is worse for her...? Too fucking bad for her...

A very close relative and I had a falling out years ago... absolutely nothing will return our relationship to what it was. That relationship is gone forever. The best we might ever hope for is a new one where we're friends who happen to be related (never family who are also friends).

I'm also curious how long SHE'S known where HE was. She told the son a week ago... did she know before then...? If so, why didn't she tell the son where he was...? If she did know and did tell the son, the fact HE didn't show up is kind of telling too, isn't it...?

"I've hated my father for more than half of my life, now my MOTHER tells me that hatred was based on a lie she told me. She also tells me where he is. But it appears I'm my mother's son and too afraid to admit when I've been wrong and face my father."

Or she managed to figure out in less than one week WHERE he was... begging the question of, "in your seventeen years of USELESS guilt (not that it wasn't deserved, just useless), you never ONCE thought to look to see what you'd done to him...?" So, again she was afraid, but in this case afraid to see what a woman - or more specifically SHE - could do to someone she professed to love.

I hope she manages to fight the cancer for years...........

Nah, fuck it

She could have come clean a long time ago. She didn't. She's only afraid of some punishment in the afterlife. She's afraid of being purged by hellfire. Or whatever she believes in. Had she not been dying of cancer, she would not have said shit about it.

So, her repentance isn't sincere. It isn't for his benefit. It's for hers.

Can't rate this story, not really.

Not a chance

For 17 years she kept quiet, letting everyone believe that he's the monster that she portrayed him as. For 17 years her son believed the same thing. If his son had question about his mother had said, he would have tried to contact his father to get his side of the story. Like they say, Never let the facts get in the way of a good story. He has had 17 years to forget about them. Hope he decided to let his wife know that he has no intention of contacting his son and that he hopes she's miserable for the remainder of her life knowing that she has destroyed the lives of their entire family.

ouch

Talk about sadness.

17yrs .... forgive, forget... I don't think so.

I hope Larabie is not off to visit his son and family. As soon as Martha confessed to her son what had actually happened and the role she played, he should have been trying to find a way to reach his dad and try to apologise for their behaviour.